Arbitrary monster abilities

[jmucchiello]

About half the monster manual.

You have it backwards. The other half of the monster manual is the arbitrary half.

 

[Yalius]

Demon electricity immunity, no explanation, just an immunity that is different from devil fire immunity. I can kind of see a chaos lightning correspondence, but it would be nice to have something more than just demons get X immunity.

'Cause one of the first demon lords loved to shuffle his feet on carpet, sneak up behind other demons, and tap them on the ear.

Or perhaps, the Abyss, being a plane of immense chaos, and mutable forms, the very atoms that make up the plane have their electrons less strongly-bound, thus making sparks, lightning, and electricity in general a facet of everyday life. This would also explain the mutability of masses on the abyss; weaker ionic and covalent bonds allow much faster maximization of entropy.

Huh.

Now I have the urge to start going through the planes and trying to extrapolate what might be the most basic differences in the physical laws and constants of each of the planes that would explain the nature of those planes. Hmmmm... delta h minus t delta s... what would be the sign of spontaneity on mechanus... and on Pandemonium the elasticity of gases is increased. On limbo the heisenberg uncertainty principle is psychoreactive.

I need a pen.

 

[Fifth Element]

Giant lizards flying and breathing fire
Women with snakes for hair petrifying you with their sight
Cow-men being unerringly good in a maze (a dairy, on the other hand, would be justifiable)
Tiger-men being shapechanging spellcasters
Bird-women being enchanting singers

Given that these are based on established mythology, they cannot be arbitrary. They are actually based on something.

Edit: except for the minotaur thing. The opposite should be true.

 

[Hypersmurf]

'Cause one of the first demon lords loved to shuffle his feet on carpet, sneak up behind other demons, and tap them on the ear.

In 1996, the hotel the Auckland Taekwon-Do Team stayed in for the Nationals had a carpet in the lobby that excelled at generating static charge. I've never before or since encountered a carpet quite like it.

But we also discovered something interesting - if one person shuffled his feet and touched someone, there was a zap. But if half a dozen people linked hands and shuffled their feet, and then the person on the end touched someone, there was a much bigger zap!

We spent a lot of time in that lobby

-Hyp.

 

[Mista Collins]

But we also discovered something interesting - if one person shuffled his feet and touched someone, there was a zap. But if half a dozen people linked hands and shuffled their feet, and then the person on the end touched someone, there was a much bigger zap!

Either Gary Gygax has been top that hotel or you just got one step closer to your evolution into a Kuo-toa.

 

[shilsen]

Given that these are based on established mythology, they cannot be arbitrary. They are actually based on something.

Right. And my post was intended to point out that much of the source material has completely arbitrary abilities too, and if not, usually has underlying reasons which are missing in the D&D version.

Just because something has a source doesn't mean that it is internally coherent or well-reasoned. It's just likely that many gamers won't notice how arbitrary it is because of the background and will fixate on things like, say, a roper instead.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Given that these are based on established mythology, they cannot be arbitrary. They are actually based on something.

Edit: except for the minotaur thing. The opposite should be true.

Maybe this is how it makes sense:
The original Minotaur was trapped in that Maze. Alone. No way to procreate for him. So, at some point, he figured out how to escape the Maze, and he got around, built a home for himself and made a family, and taught all his children how to escape a Maze, so that they would live a better life then himself. Since then, all Minotaurs can get out of Mazes easily..

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Minotaurs are good in mazes because the one in the legend was expert at navigating the one he was in- he unerringly hunted his prey within its confines. As I recall, the only reason he couldn't escape was that the maze itself was sealed and guarded- the only time it was opened was when the sacrificial youths were forced into it.

The original designers had a choice- make its familiarity derived from intimate familiarity or make it a supernatural ability.

Given that they altered the original from being unique to making it but one of many for game purposes, giving it the supernatural ability made them more formidable opponents.

 

[Kmart Kommando]

As for the roper's immunity to electricity, they're well grounded, maybe?
They're basically built like a stone pillar.

They speak Terran, are earth elementals immune to electricity?

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Every second monster and it's mother being fire-based or fire-related somehow. Anything from the elemental plane of fire makes sense of course, but just about every frikkin' kind of fiend and celestial has fire resistance......that devil (gelugon?) from the icy layer of Baator--he's immune to fire and partially resistant to cold. Really people, we can break traditions every damn once in a while!